This sounds like it's going to be a good episode for all of us who want to see more of the Mother. I'm guessing it will be her narrating the story and will be from her perspective. I'm very excited to see how the episode goes.

Judging from this episode, they should've figured out how to get Cristin Milioti into every episode of HIMYM this season. She's wonderful!

From here on I'm just skipping any episode that she's not in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neenahboy

Damn it all, why couldn't the season have been this?

EXACTLY!
This is why some of us have been so livid at the wasted episodes this season that were barely mediocre, THIS is what they get right when they're firing on all cylinders and not just phoning it in.

I'd go as far as saying that this may be one of their best episodes in the series.

__________________"There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out."

Totally agree with above about it being a great episode and wishing they had done a lot more with the mother this season. In fact, I actually was annoyed by the ending with Barney being gone, because it likely just leads to more of the usual stuff rather than the great stuff with the mother. Wonder where Lily went - she's not with the mother!

The Mother says "What the damn hell?!" just like how Marshall and Daphne said in previous episodes.

Kelly mentions that she once met a guy who tried to pick up girls by saying that his penis granted wishes. This is one of Barney's plays first shown in The Playbook.

When drinking at MacLaren's Pub Louis seems to believe that it's called Puzzles. This means that he was at the bar during the events of Three Days of Snow.

The Mother shows many of her quirks that Future Ted revealed throughout the span of the series, as well as many quirks she shares with Ted:

Her paintings of robots playing sports

Her breakfast singing show

A love for caligraphy

A love for coins

Proper pronunciation of certain words such as renaissance

Clips from many previous episodes were seen including:

The bar scene in Pilot, where Ted and Barney play have you met Ted

The scene in The Mermaid Theory and Now We're Even where Ted wears a dress.

The scene(s) from The Leap/Definitions in the Econ 305 class that Ted mistakenly teaches.

The scene in Bass Player Wanted where The Mother buys a drink for Ted

The club scene in No Tomorrow.

The breakup scene in Girls Versus Suits and the aftermath that followed.

The scene in "Now We're Even" when Lily and Barney make up, and Ted walks in wearing a dress.

In the scene in which meets Louis and The Mother, a "Save the Arcadian" sign can be seen in the background, indicating they met sometime during Season 6. However, when they meet for a drink, Lily and Barney are seen making up following their fight in The Mermaid Theory, which is followed by

Ted entering the bar wearing a dress, indicating that they met at the same night the events of Now We're Even.

Louis was seen as The Mother's boyfriend in The Time Travelers.

It is revealed that the Mother knew Mitch, the Naked Man, from music lessons prior to the series. He also attempts the Naked Man on her unsuccessfully, establishing his 2/3 rule.

In 2008 it's shown that The Mother is reading "Worlds End" a book of which she lent Cindy in 2009 when Ted pointed it out when visiting her house in Girls Versus Suits.

Let me offer the completely original observation that Bays & Thomas hit a towering home run with casting Cristin Milioti. Wow, is she appealing. The final scene of her playing the ukelele was beautiful and sad.

I think it doesn't speak well for what the show has been doing creatively that it could shuffle all the main characters and story off to the side for an entire episode and they could go totally unmissed. The show is playing with something interesting and real in Marshall and Lilly, and I'm interested to see how that resolves, but that's all I really care to know more about.

[*]It is revealed that the Mother knew Mitch, the Naked Man, from music lessons prior to the series. He also attempts the Naked Man on her unsuccessfully, establishing his 2/3 rule.

"The Naked Man" is one of my favorite episodes of the series. So clever. I think they engaged in a bit of revisionist history to fit Mitch into this episode, though, as he was managing a CPK in the Naked Man episode.

I'd go as far as saying that this may be one of their best episodes in the series.

I don't think it rises to that level. It's more that it stands out so sharply from most of what has gone on around it this season. And Milioti elevates it further.

But it was very good, no disagreement there.

ETA: Sepinwall's review gets at something that bugged me a bit. We've all asked his first question, but his second one is valid, too:

Quote:

But as I watched Cristin Milioti be so vulnerable, and charming, and funny, and as I saw the Mother blossom into something more than just a collection of tics that Ted Mosby is destined to find adorable, all I could think was A)Why did we have to wait so long for this? and B)Why did they have to squeeze it all into one episode?

I would have much preferred this season taking place after they met and have it be a combination of her getting to know Ted and blending into the group dynamics paired with flashbacks of their past near misses and overlaps.

I would have much preferred this season taking place after they met and have it be a combination of her getting to know Ted and blending into the group dynamics paired with flashbacks of their past near misses and overlaps.

This is what I was hoping for actually. I know for many of us, the title was literal, but to me, that wouldn't have bent it too far.

That said, this was a wonderful episode. I agree with it being one of the best of the series. At it's best, HIMYM knew how to pull at your heartstrings. The best episodes were the ones where we got a glimpse of Ted moving toward meeting the mother, or Lily and Marshall struggles in their lives, or Barney and Robin's dance around and to each other. This one played right into that.

The more I think about this episode and how the rest of the season has gone, this should have been a 10 episode season at most. Then we wouldn't have needed all the silly filler.

Except you need to have seen SOME OF the previous episodes of the series to get most of what they showed in this one episode.

FYP.

The previous post talks about wasted episodes THIS season. And I agree. There were bits and pieces of most episodes that were important to the story, but much of it could have been told more succinctly in the context of few episodes with less filler. What we got were a lot of mediocre episodes with a tidbit of important information thrown in. I get why they had to do it this way (ratings of course), but it has made me impatient. Now that we are in the home stretch I hope we get a lot more substance (and more mother!) the rest of the way. I think there are three critical questions left to answer:

1) Lily and Marshall - what happens to their marriage? Subquestions: Does Lily go to Rome? Does Marshall stay and become a judge?

2) Do Barney and Robin go through with the wedding?

3) And of course, what are the circumstances that put the mother and Ted at the train station in Farhampton for their faithful meeting?

Okay...after watching, I agree that this was definitely the best episode this season. Really, my only complaint about it is that they crammed all that into one episode. At times, it felt rushed. I would have preferred to see those back stories spread out over at least a couple of episodes to flesh them out more rather than giving us a very fast overview of them.

Nonetheless, that's a minor complaint and I really enjoyed the episode.... from the redone opening sequence with the mother all the way to the song at the end that was so very beautiful.

That's not the plans at this time. The "spinoff" that they are planning, "How I Met Your Father," will be just a similarly styled show to "How I Met Your Mother" except from a female perspective. It will be an entirely new cast and unrelated to the "How I Met Your Mother" storyline. It's really not a spinoff at all, given that.

I sincerely hope that if there is a spinoff that they recast all of the roles except the mother. She is awesome. The rest just plain sucked. Aside from the Naked Guy all of the supporting cast was very poorly acted. The wife's song at the end was awesome. Ted should have, at the least, introduced herself to him.

Much of the supporting cast was already in the show. They were cast for one or two episodes. Casting for regular for a series is different.

Admittedly dumb question -- was ANY of the footage actually old footage from previous episodes?

I think not, since it was basically doing the Rashomon thing -- showing you the same scene from a different perspective (and/or with more info).

I'm curious about this too. Sure some were from different angles and we saw the mothers face, but what about the scene where Ted comes in wearing a dress? Did a brunette really walk by Barney & Lily in the original scene?

Also, not sure if the rumored ending has been talked about in these threads (I think it has), but this episode makes me think it's true.